Resources

Jeffrey Ravel (MIT) has generously shared this fascinating site regarding using film to teach Ancien Regime theater.  He has visual and film resources available on his site.  http://h-france.net/fffh/classics/revisiting-cyrano-de-bergerac-1990-ide...

The challenge for the classroom teacher is to sensitize the students to the differences between the surprisingly interactive performance experience in France 250-350 years ago, and the distinctly tamer variant of live theater that we encounter in most playhouses today. Since its premiere in 1990, I have occasionally shown students the first 15 minutes or so of Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s film version of the Edmond Rostand stage classic, Cyrano de Bergerac. In this opening segment, Rappeneau and his actors recreate a live performance in a Parisian public theater of the 1640s. In the past year, I have preceded this film clip with a PowerPoint presentation of a series of engravings and other images of seventeenth-century Paris theaters that help students better understand the many historically specific details captured in the film. In my PowerPoint presentation, I stress three themes: the architectural peculiarities of Paris playhouses of the Old Regime, the characteristics of the different sections of those theaters, and the comparison between the public theaters and the performing spaces at the court of the kings of France. Once we have looked carefully at engravings and other still images of theaters in this period, we are ready to appreciate Rappeneau’s filmic version of an admittedly turbulent evening in a seventeenth-century Paris public theater.

Biographical note: Jeffrey S. Ravel studies the history of French and European political culture from the mid-seventeenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. He is the author of The Would-Be Commoner: A Tale of Deception, Murder, and Justice in Seventeenth Century France (Houghton Mifflin, 2008); and The Contested Parterre: Public Theater and French Political Culture, 1680-1791 (Cornell University Press, 1999).  He is currently working on a history of French playing cards and political regimes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Thank you so much to Dave Gallo for sharing the syllabus of his course « Royalties and Revolutions: From the Pre-Modern to the Modern World”.  Professor Gallo describes his course as: “an examination of this transition period through the lens of the French monarchy – from the dawn of Louis XIV to the beginnings of the French Revolution – where in so many ways the world we still live in was born”. 

This course is designed as an introduction for first- and second-year students to the study of History generally, and in particular to the study of France and the French monarchy in the 17th/18th centuries. Professor Gallo has taught this course for the last three years and has received very good evaluations and positive feedbacks from his students.

Professor Gallo is sharing on the se-17 website:

-       The course’s syllabus (which conforms to the MSCHE guidelines)

-       Three units that contain the assigned readings and guided questions for students  in pdf format

David Gallo is an associate professor of History at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, NY. His research interests include: 17th century France, Courtly life during reign of King Louis XIV of France, Versailles and court culture, 17th century French theater, the Bourbon Monarchy between Louis XIV and Louis XVI, and Byzantine Empire (Reign of Justinian and Theodora).

Pr. Gallo has taught a wide variety of History courses:  Royalties and Revolutions: Pre-Modern to the Modern Worlds (HIST 202), Classical civilizations (HIST 300), Medieval History (HIST 301), Eastern Roman Empire (HIST 302), The Tudor Reformations (HIST 405), The French Monarchy, 1560-1789 (HIST 410), Practicum in the Teaching of History (HIST 495), Shaping of the Modern World, Divine Right of Kings to Revolution, …

More about professor David Gallo :

http://www.mountsaintvincent.edu/academics/academic-departments/department-of-history/faculty/david-gallo/

Alliance for the Advancement of Liberal Arts Colleges (AALAC) Workshop   “Blended Learning Approaches to Teaching Early Modern France in a Liberal Arts Context”   Workshop Date: Friday, October 16 and Saturday, October 17, 2015 Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA  Organizers: Hélène Bilis, Hélène Visentin, Thomas Parker, David Harrison, and Jean-Vincent Blanchard

Our workshop has three main goals: 1) Pedagogical: to focus on flipped/blended approaches to teaching early modern France with the aim of enhancing the learning experience of our students through an informed use of new media. 2) Philosophical: to reflect on how best to convey the relevance and importance of the French early modern period to twenty-first-century undergraduates through liberal arts curricula. If the goal is to teach students to think historically, how can we best foster in them an understanding of the past and a value for languages and cultures seemingly so distant from them? 3) Collaborative: to build professional connections through the implementation of shared pedagogical projects across campuses. All interested are invited to attend. Prof. Dan Edelstein (Stanford University) will serve as keynote speaker, offering a talk entitled, "Who was the Enlightenment?," to be given on Saturday, October 17 at 10:30. The preliminary program is available here: https://wellesley.academia.edu/HeleneBilis

Dear colleagues, 

In order to create a useful and practical teaching resources platform on the new SE17/NASSCFL portal, we need your help! There are two ways in which you can participate and none of them should take much of your time. We are looking for examples of syllabi that you would agree to post on the website as well as samples of particularly successful lessons or sequences that you would like to share with the members of the SE17/NASSCFL portal. 

The process is very easy: simply email your syllabus (as such) to scapmart@tulane.edu, Jrow@bu.edu, or aconboy@csbsju.edu.

The syllabi will be organized by level/topic and only available to the website’s members. 

As for the lessons, we are looking for examples of successful or creative ones. Depending on your class’ format, the description of the lesson could be very different and we could provide you with a sample one if needed. Our goal is to collect a wide range of activities showing how to engage students diversely. 

We are very excited about the opportunities offered by the teaching resources’ section on the portal and we are looking forward to receiving your contributions in order to bring it to life!

Best regards,

Sophie Capmartin, Ana Conboy, and Jennifer Row.

Dear colleagues, 

In order to create a useful and practical teaching resources platform on the new SE17/NASSCFL portal, we need your help! There are two ways in which you can participate and none of them should take much of your time. We are looking for examples of syllabi that you would agree to post on the website as well as samples of particularly successful lessons or sequences that you would like to share with the members of the SE17/NASSCFL portal. 

The process is very easy: simply email your syllabus (as such) to scapmart@tulane.edu, Jrow@bu.edu, or aconboy@csbsju.edu.

The syllabi will be organized by level/topic and only available to the website’s members. 

As for the lessons, we are looking for examples of successful or creative ones. Depending on your class’ format, the description of the lesson could be very different and we could provide you with a sample one if needed. Our goal is to collect a wide range of activities showing how to engage students diversely. 

We are very excited about the opportunities offered by the teaching resources’ section on the portal and we are looking forward to receiving your contributions in order to bring it to life!

Best regards,

Sophie Capmartin, Ana Conboy, and Jennifer Row.